Literacy Topics

TextProject’s numerous resources have been organized around topics. You can access the resources for a topic from the list below. We’ve also created a guide that gives an overview of the rich resources at TextProject.

The Common Core State Standards represent a collaboration by states to set the same goals for student learning. Within these standards, explicit text levels are given across the grades to ensure that high school graduates are college and career ready. Beginning with the grade 2-3 band, target text levels have increased from previous recommendations. However, the Standards provide little guidance on how to support the many students who struggle with current grade-level texts. TextProject has responded rapidly to this need with research-based resources that will guide and inform educators, parents, and community leaders.

To become proficient readers, beginning and struggling readers need to become automatic with a core group of words. Other proficiencies are required as well but, without automaticity with the core vocabulary, beginning readers will become struggling readers and struggling readers will continue to lag behind.

The reason we read is to learn from text. TextProject has resources to aid teachers in supporting comprehension, including close reading of texts. To provide the best instruction for and to their students, teachers need to have a clear view of students’ reading comprehension and knowledge. Assessment is all about understanding what knowledge learners have gained. Currently, many states are moving into a new generation of assessments. TextProject is committed to providing educators with the best possible guidance and resources about the new generation of assessments.

Learning to read and write in English, while simultaneously becoming facile with spoken English, is a challenge for the many English Learners in American schools. For English Learners, intentional instruction and experiences with vocabulary are especially critical. TextProject has numerous resources to support educators in ensuring that English Learners get the solid foundation that they need to become highly literate.

Texts are where humans share and store what they learned. The reason for reading—regardless of whether texts are narrative or informational—is to acquire the knowledge that texts hold. To truly become proficient readers of complex texts, students need to be immersed in informational texts.

Whatever the domain of a human endeavor, the amount of time that individuals devote to an activity influences their levels of proficiency. Reading is no different. TextProject provides resources to support an increase in students’ reading, including their ability to read independently. A particular focus of TextProject’s resources is with summer reading. Unless students have appropriate texts for summer reading, their reading declines from the end of one grade to the start of the next.

Being able to read increasingly more complex texts has always been a driving goal of reading instruction. Often this goal has not been directly addressed in state standards and assessments. Things are different with the Common Core State Standards. The Common Core has paid increased attention to this feature of reading instruction by devoting an entire standard to text complexity— Standard 10.

Vocabulary is the term for the words of a language and morphology is the term for the study of the parts of words. TextProject has numerous resources for supporting vocabulary learning and the development of morphological awareness.